Best Appearance of a Dr.-Strange-Affiliated Character, Accoutrement, Parody, etc.: Zom in World War Hulk

Best Appearance of a Dr.-Strange-Affiliated Character, Accoutrement, Parody, etc., Runner-Up: many delights in Mystic Arcana's back-up story and The Marvel Tarot, Winds of Watoomb used as scuba gear, Oshtur being the basis of Easter and Ostara, etc.

Best Appearance of a Dr.-Strange-Affiliated Character, Accoutrement, Parody, etc., Runner-Up: Dr. Karma in Love and Capes

Biggest Disappointment to Dr. Strange Fans, Runner-Up: it's OK to depower an omniscient Doctor Strange in order to be able to tell a story, just do it already, but Doc is so obviously depowered, with splash pages of him crying "No!" when asked if he can do something, and ten hint-drops like, "My powers are not what they once were...", leaving Doc fans to only hope that he's either really been a Skrull lately, or that the Skrull sorcerers are fucking with him somehow

Biggest Disappointment to Dr. Strange Fans, Runner-Up: "the entire structure of magic in the Marvel Universe needs to be repaired" in Mystic Arcana- and where is the Sorcerer Supreme?- checking out hockey scores, according to Illuminati

Doctor Strange is the King of Clubs in the Skrulls' Most Wanted deck [Comic Book Resources]
We've seen little of Skrull society- only the occasional invading military- there's no reason they can't have sorcerers, or install a fake Doc.

Rob Worley (Young Ancient One) has a ghost-and-gangsters three-issue mini-series called The Revenant coming in March [Pulse]

Appreciating a quick Marshall Rogers convention sketch;"the hackiest hack who worked for Marvel in the early '60s had a better sense of basic figure drawing and naturalism than almost any contemporary cartoonist" [Comics Comics] [via Comics Reporter]

On the "Bubble World" method of survival within the vast shared universes of Marvel and DC [Siskoid] via [Blog@Newsarama]

Fletcher Hanks' work (re: I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!) is way too fascist to be celebrated by the likes of Kurt Vonnegut [Hooded Utilitarian]

1. No blinds for privacy on big Sanctum Sanctorum window.
2. He kept calling them the Orbs of Agamotto.
3. No cure for the burning head caught from Dormammu.
4. Calling her "my old lady" to the poker guys: tolerable. Referring to her as "The Ancient One": not.
5. The Cloak of Levitation made her airsick.
6. He used his Wand of Watoomb like a Mindless One.
7. Conjuring iron clamp over her mouth to shut her up was the last straw.
8. Once you go "Dark Dimension", you never go back.
9. One word: Manservant.
10. Creepy Eye of Agamotto liked to watch.

Superhero comics use costumes and powers as an exciting metaphor for the liberation of your secret self, so having costumes and powers that make a visual and mental impact on the reader aren't just gravy, they're part of why a character works or doesn't work, and there's no shame in that game...

Most of the dreary superhero comics that the internet makes fun of these days have superheroes shouting or crying where they should be punching, and that's where they go wrong...

I think it's a bad idea to continue to involve Spidey in magic and mysticism, which has been a hallmark of writer J. Michael Straczynski's run dating back to when he ret-conned the character's practically perfect origin story to change the source of his powers from radiation to some Spider-God -- now the spider that bit him is supposed to have already had powers he was sent to transfer to Peter Parker, and the radiation was just an accident! It's a bad idea because Spidey's roots are in science fiction, his vibe is as everyday real-world as a Marvel superhero's vibe can get, and the whole point of his character -- like most Marvel characters -- isn't that he's some Chosen One selected by the Gods and tempted by devils, he's just some teenage loser who at a couple of key moments was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had to make a choice of how to live his life after those moments. Again, replacing Lee/Ditko chance with destiny is a JMS calling card -- witness his Matrixy revamp of Doctor Strange's origin. I think it misses the point of Marvel Comics.

Rant: The current environment is hostile to kinder, gentler old-school Defenders + lightning + bottle [A Trout In The Milk]

"One More Day" reboot met the needs of only one Spider-Man reader: Joe Quesada [Comic Book Galaxy]
Update: Comics are known to put toothpaste back in tubes; One More Day puts Civil War's Spider-Man-identity-outing toothpaste back in, and that's where One More Day's toothpaste is headed [The Hurting]
Update: One More Day universally reviled; Spider-Man sells his soul/perfect marriage to the devil to avoid personal responsibility [Progressive Ruin]
Update: Awesome One More Day reaction via Watchmen edit [by Chip Zdarsky] [via BeaucoupKevin, who has his own take (Peter Parker 30-something broke living with mom now matches demographic still reading Spider-Man...)]
Update: Spider-Man's New Status Quo PR image [Newsarama]
Update: Infantilizing reboot of Spider-Man opens up no new stories for the 21st century; "very much the opposite of brand new" [Douglas Wolk at Savage Critics]

With a new Indiana Jones movie upcoming, speculators are advised to pick up those Marvel issues Ditko drew [Wizard]

Comics in the classroom: The pairing of visual and written plotlines helps struggling readers [New York Times]

Must-read: Retailer discusses decision to eliminate back issues in his shop [ICv2]
Too many front-loaded mini-series glut-titles now to store (Marvel/DC have gone from putting out one longbox/year to ten); a limited collector audience puts collectible prices out of reach for most shops, while most others aren't interested in books that predate them/don't push any child-memory buttons.
Update: Part 2

Maybe week after week after week of mind-numbingly boring and pretentious art comix in the NYT Mag are making me grouchy. Each time I read one of those graphic turds, I can't help but wonder about the scores of far more talented cartoonists will never get a shot at that real estate (and no, I'm not talking about me). It's an outrage, and someone ought to say so.

Rall sips of the argument-undermining angry-juice (the Equal Time link would be most of the other comments at The Beat- Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat wants a piece too)- and the New York Times ain't picking comics for Neilalien's tastes. But the way Neilalien sees it, just as anyone interested in dispelling the absurdly hogwash notion that costumed vigilantism is the only legitimate genre for comics is disappointed with the gatekeeping of 90% of comic shops, anyone who has an interest in dispelling the (Neilalien's?) absurdly hogwash notion that all artcomix are precious white suburban objets d'angst ought to be disappointed that the gatekeepers at vaunted venues like the Times Magazine and the "Best American Comics" books dip so heavily from the "mopey" barrel. Alas, our bad embarrassing gatekeepers who tell the "outside world", "This is Comics".

Dinosaurs by Ditko: scan of 3-pager "The Man Who Crashed Into Another Era" in Do You Believe In Nightmares #1, November 01957 [Tomb It May Concern (Neilalien loves the puns)]

That time in Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 12 when Doctor Strange Jr. miscast a spell and removed Wong's shirt and revealed his nipple ring [Scans_daily]
They posted this a couple months ago, but (1) all of those new required adult content extra mouse clicks and (2) changing/inconsistently using both "doctor strange" and "dr. strange" as tags are undermining Neilalien's ability to check out the fun site.

In defense of nitpicking: Dr. Bruccoli says, "Factual errors in fiction distract readers who spot them and may undermine confidence in the work and the author. Many careful readers hold that if an author cannot be trusted in details, he may not be trustworthy in larger matters." [Suspension of Disbelief]

The full issue of Casanova #8 is online, if the buck-99 price and the near-universal praise somehow weren't enough for you to check the book out yet [Newsarama]

Doctor Strange is a fictional character who appears in, and is wholly owned by, Marvel Comics.
This site is not official nor affiliated with Marvel Comics.
This site is for academic and personal use.
Images of Doctor Strange and other characters are owned by their respective owners, and are used via fair use out of love without permission.
This site has no intention of diluting, risking or exploiting anyone's ownership or the money-making ability of their own properties, trademarks, and copyrights.
It is this site's sincere hope that the owners, especially Marvel Comics, are rational people who "get" the internet and fandom,
and can perceive this site as a free generator of positive promotion and interest, even when this site might be critical of how they are using their properties, or place their properties in humorous, satiric, parodic or ironic situations.